The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones, Now!

The white noise bacchanal of swinging London having an affair with the rhythmic visceralness and "colors" of black R'n'B: the virtually perfect result could be this "The Rolling Stones Now." This is a collection, dating back to '65 and destined for the overseas market, as was common for the period. The fact is negative because this, of the two, is undoubtedly the juiciest and most interesting.

Just look at the black and white cover, those very unpolished gentlemen who - it seems certain - are about to play with fire. Now! - and it’s rhythm, color, abrasive visceralness, and outrageous dance of the most instinctive humanity on the labels, on the uselessness of composure and good manners in virile spiritual expression; music made for the sexual organs, but also infecting reason, which will not delay in gladly throwing in the towel... Now! - is immediate, is fast, but it is also a mirror on the soul, dirty in all its ineffable depth, of these immortal (in every sense) legends of that music which is substance above all.

The classics are reprised, shamelessly mixed with the tracks of the Jagger/Richard duo, under the supervision and refined contribution of Brian Jones in the arrangements. "down home girl" "heart of stone" are songs at the same time useless (for a merely continuous discourse) and indispensable, in which each contains the premises of the next, for what is somewhat the wonder of the golden era of the Rolling Stones.

The group, in fact, takes up the legacy of Chuck Berry ("you can't catch me") Willie Dixon ("little red rooster") and that world of uninhibitedness that so frightened the do-gooders, the revenge of the blues rock dressed in white. A dangerous mix of subversive energy and accessibility at every level, not seen today anymore. Richard's dirty and dusty riffs, the visceral percussion of that monster Watts, Jagger's scratchy screams. There is everything one could ask of them, with the suspicion that it is Rock itself (in its dazzling and sinful form) playing them, not the other way around. Such brazen determination and such cohesion are not felt in such quantities for a group so young, as the Stones were in that period. And the smell of tobacco, parquet, and adrenaline gushes copiously from the grooves, unstoppable.

It's impossible to keep your foot still (try it), here there's rhythm, here there's the beginning and the end of everything (even reminiscences of bacchanal guitarism common to many experimental ensembles). A pearl of anachronistic beauty, crowning the first phase of the group with a feverish demonstration of vitality.

And above all, now that the sacred fire of Rock n’ Roll no longer likes to give itself as it once did, why not enjoy the fruit of its most intense and enduring love affair?